Value Conflicts in Social Work: Categories and Correlates

Value Conflicts in Social Work: Categories and Correlates

Stephanie Valutis, Ph.D. Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA stephanie.valutis@cnu.edu

Deborah Rubin, Ph.D. Chatham University, Pittsburgh, PA rubin@chatham.edu

Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics, Volume 13, Number 1 (2016) Copyright 2016, ASWB

This text may be freely shared among individuals, but it may not be republished in any medium without express written consent from the authors and advance notification of ASWB

Abstract

This quantitative study explores the experience and correlates of categories of reported value conflicts in social work. Results indicate variance between categories of conflict in both frequency of experiences and their correlations. In addition supporting the need for further research to distinguish categories of value conflict and implications for professional practice.

Keywords: value conflicts, professional socialization, ethics, social work values, value priorities

Introduction

Interest in the relationship between professional and personal attitudes, values and behaviors (e.g., Comartin & Gonzalez-Prendes, 2011; Landau, 1999; Osteen, 2011) is rooted in the centrality of values to the profession of social work. National and international social work organizations have developed codes of ethics that underscore professional values and guide practice. The International Federation of Social Workers Statement of Ethical Principles (IFSW, 2012) put forth principles to guide social workers' professional responsibilities (social justice, human rights and human dignity), as well as providing guidelines for professional conduct. In the United

States, the preamble of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics identifies the core values of the profession as "service, social justice, dignity, worth of the person, importance of relationships, integrity and competence" (NASW, 2008). As the "foundation of social work's unique purpose and perspective" (para. 3), these values should be infused into the education and socialization of social work students to promote common values, increase professional identity and provide guidance for social work practice.

Social Work Values and Professional Socialization

The transmission of the values, ideas, ethics, and attitudes of the profession occurs through the process of professional socialization (Patchner, Gullerud, Downing, Donaldson, & Leuenberger, 1987). This dynamic process contributes to the development of professional identity and the internalization of group norms as students are integrated into the professional culture of social work (Barretti, 2004; Miller, 2010). It is also a process that is mandated by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) in the Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) as a necessary educational outcome. As an outcome of social work education, a student should "Identify oneself as a professional social worker and conduct oneself accordingly" (CSWE

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Value Conflicts in Social Work: Categories and Correlates

EPAS, 2008, p. 3). While Urdang (2010) asserts that the "development of the professional self has long been viewed by many educators as the most essential component of graduate social work training" (p. 524), this process should begin at the undergraduate level for those in the baccalaureate social work programs.

Despite the importance of shared professional standards and ethics there are inevitably differences in social workers' personal values, political affiliations, religious beliefs, and cultural backgrounds. Osteen (2011) found that "It was not uncommon for [social work] students to encounter value incongruity at some point during their educational program" (p. 434). This value incongruity may also be encountered by practicing social workers. "Often, in the course of practice, social workers encounter situations that bring them face to face with conflict between their personal values and the values of the profession" (Comartin & Gonzalez-Prendez, 2011, p. 5). Evidence of value conflicts are also documented in a body of research in the social work literature that addresses both the nature of the core values of the profession and personal-professional value conflicts (Reamer, 2000).

Personal and Professional Value Conflicts

The literature documents the existence of professional and personal value conflicts in social work practice (e.g., Comartin & GonzalezPrendes, 2011; Levy, 2011; Osteen, 2011; Stewart, 2009; Streets, 2008). Previous research includes a qualitative study of students' motivations for entering the profession of social work and the congruence of personal values with professional ones (Osteen, 2011). There are also case studies and personal accounts of the resolution of personal-professional value conflicts (Comartin & Gonzalez-Prendes, 2011; Levy, 2011), and articles on the interface between religion and social work values (Hodge, 2006; Landau, 1999; Spano & Koenig, 2007; Streets, 2008). The literature suggests that both the source and resolution

of value conflicts are related to an individual's understanding and use of the NASW Code of Ethics and to individual differences in cognitive processing. Some social workers view the Code of Ethics as a guide for ethical behavior and decisions (Spano & Koenig, 2010) while some see it as a "deontological code" (Adams, 2009, para. 5). Mattison (2000) identifies differing approaches to ethical conflicts and notes that some individuals favor exercising their own discretionary judgment in situations of conflict and decisions while others prefer to follow rules or policies. Stated differently, there are individual differences as defined by absolutism and relativism (Mattison, 2000). Such differences in the use of the Code of Ethics, in differing approaches to value decisions, and in the influence of personal values on behaviors (McCarty & Shrum, 2010) all point to the need for a greater understanding of the complexity of value conflicts in social work practice.

Current study Despite the body of research focused on the conflict and congruence between personal and professional values and beliefs (e.g., Osteen, 2011; Rosenwald, 2006; Spano & Koenig, 2007; Stewart, 2009), a greater understanding is needed as to the complexity of these conflicts and how they are experienced while being resolved by practicing social workers. An earlier exploratory study (Valutis, Rubin & Bell, 2014), using a sample of licensed social workers from one state, concluded that while few participants reported experiencing value conflicts between religious beliefs and professional roles, differences between religious and political beliefs should be further distinguished and other potential correlations further explored. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the larger body of research on professional and personal value conflicts in social work by using a quantitative survey research design to examine social workers' experience of conflicts between professional values, personal values, religious beliefs and political ideologies.

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Value Conflicts in Social Work: Categories and Correlates

Method

Participants and procedures Using a cross sectional survey design, a selfconstructed electronic survey was made available to members of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and social work educators belonging to the Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors (BPD) list-serv. The survey link was posted on the NASW Linked-In website and sent via electronic mail to all members of the BPD list-serv. A cover letter that explained the purpose of the survey, noted Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval and affirmed the voluntary and anonymous nature of the survey accompanied the survey link. The survey link was posted twice on Linked-In with a two-month interval between postings, and was emailed once to the BPD list-serv. Responses were collected through the survey software with no individual identifying information or links to users. Two hundred nineteen survey responses were received. Forty-five of the respondents answered no to the item "I am a social work practitioner" and five did not answer. These responses were removed leaving 169 participants from 40 different U.S. states included in the analyses. Of the respondents who were omitted from the study only 11 (24.4%) reported having a baccalaureate or master's degree in social work. The decision to eliminate responses of these participants was made because of the lack of clarity in their status as social work practitioners.

Measures Survey item development was guided by previous research (Valutis, Rubin & Bell, 2014) and included both equivalent and new questions. Previously used variables included: social work practitioners' experiences of value conflicts and beliefs about the prioritization of the values used to resolve the conflict, religiosity, age, sex, years of social work experience, current primary work function, practice environment, work setting, political beliefs, and importance of religion in daily life. New survey items included specific categories of value conflicts, a scale of political activity, and additional measures of religiosity. New items related

to work settings included agency type (private or public), and faith-based agency affiliation. Items that identified social work educators were added in order to identify those directly involved in the professional socialization and integration of common values of future practitioners. A description of the measures follows.

Conflict and Priority questions Four questions measured the dependent variable of "value conflict". Prior research has suggested that "there is a need for research of conflict and prioritization beyond and within the construct of religion" (Valutis, Rubin & Bell, 2014, p. 175). For this purpose, conflict items asked the extent to which participants experience conflict between their (a) professional and personal values, (b) professional values and religious beliefs, (c) professional values and political views, and (d) religious beliefs and political views. These Likert-type items had 5 levels of responses ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). A separate item intended to measure "value priority" asked participants for the primary source of direction for decisions when faced with any conflict between values/views ("In my social work practice, when faced with a conflict between values/views, the primary source of direction for my decision is"). Responses offered included (a) professional values, (b) personal values, (c) political views, (d) religious beliefs, or (e) other (please specify).

Work-Related Items Participants were asked about their years of social work experience, their current primary work function and area of practice, the work setting of their current position, and years of social work experience. Although years of experience was collected as an open-ended response, it was grouped categorically for analysis with 1 = "less than 2 years", 2 = "2-5 years", 3 = "6-10 years", 4 = "11-15 years", 5 = "16-20 years" and 6 = "more than 20 years". "Current primary work function" was based on the National Association

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Value Conflicts in Social Work: Categories and Correlates

of Social Workers (NASW) membership description categories and included direct practice, administration, advocacy/community organization, social work education, and "other." In addition, categorical variables were used to record participants' area of practice, status of agency as private, public non-profit or public for-profit, and whether the agency had a religious affiliation (faith-based).

Religiosity and Politics Survey questions about religiosity and politics were designed to address the complexity of religious and political beliefs and practices on value conflicts and value priorities. Self-reported religiosity as well as the importance of religion in daily life were recorded as scaled responses through three separate items. Religiosity was measured by one item asking how often participants attend religious services and one item asking how often participants use religious beliefs/ faith as a guide in making decisions/choices in their life. Responses to both of these items used a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Almost never) to 6 (Daily). The importance of religion in daily life was measured by the question "How important is religion to you in your daily life" with responses on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very unimportant) to 5 (very important). Participants' political views and involvement were measured by items asking political ideology as well as an 8-item political activity scale constructed by the authors for this survey. The political ideology item asked participants to indicate the best descriptor for their ideology on a scale from very conservative (1) to very liberal (5). Participant involvement in political activity was measured by calculating the sum of responses to 8 questions regarding various types of involvement (voting, campaigning, contacting legislators, participating in political rallies/marches/etc., helping to organize political rallies/marches/etc., signing a petition, donating or raising money for a political purpose, and engaging in a boycott). All items in this measure

used responses from 1 (never) to 3 (many times). The sum of responses to all 8 items was used as a measure of political activity with a possible range of 8-24 with higher scores indicating greater political involvement.

Results

Descriptive Analysis Participant Characteristic Variables Table 1 displays the demographics of the participants. The mean age of participants was 48.28 (SD = 12.99). The majority of participants were between 30 and 59 years of age (89.8%, n=123) and female (78.7%, n = 133). Participants' political beliefs were overwhelmingly liberal (m=4.31, SD=.99) with a response of "4" corresponding to "somewhat liberal" and a response of "5" corresponding to "very liberal". On the political activity scale, with a range of 8-24 and higher scores indicating greater political activity, participants scored a mean of 16.11 (SD=3.71). The mean scores on religiosity items indicated participants' attendance at religious services fell between monthly and a couple times a month (m=2.52, SD=1.51), and use of faith to guide decisions in daily life to occur between weekly and a couple times a week (m=4.31, SD=2.11) on the 6-point scale. The use of faith to guide decisions also showed greater variance among participants than attendance at religious services. The mean of the importance of religion in daily life fell between neutral and somewhat important (m=3.38, SD=1.56) on the 5-point scale. In sum, results indicate that participants report the use of faith/beliefs to guide decision in personal life to a greater extent, and with greater variance, than they report the importance of religion in their daily life. Attendance at religious services has the least reported frequency in aggregate on the religiosity items. Finally, participants were asked with which religion they identified given a list of 10 choices and "other". Some choices received insufficient responses for data analysis, only those categories with 5 responses were used for a total of 112 responses (i.e., Protestant, Jewish, Roman

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Value Conflicts in Social Work: Categories and Correlates

Catholic, Buddhist, Agnostic and Atheist). Fiftyseven (50.9%) participants reported to be Protestant, followed by Roman Catholic (20.5%, n=23), Atheist (14.3%, n=16), Jewish (9.8%, n=11), and Buddhist (4.5%, n=5).

Work-Related Items Table 2 illustrates the work-related responses. On average participants had 15.41 (SD = 12.56) years of social work experience, with almost a third (29.3%, n=48) reporting more

than 20 years' experience. Half of the participants reported their primary work function as direct practice (50.6%, n=83) followed by social work education (31.7%, n=52). The largest percentage of participants reported working in mental health (36.0%, n=58) with almost equal numbers in the next most common areas of practice, child/ family welfare (12.4%, n=19) and health (12.4%, n=19). Other categories (i.e., occupational social work, addictions, community development, public welfare, advocacy) resulted in too few responses for

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Value Conflicts in Social Work: Categories and Correlates

analysis and were therefore included in the category of "other". The work settings of participants were almost half urban (49.7%, n=81) with the remaining participants evenly distributed between suburban (25.2%, n=41) and rural (25.2%, n=41) settings. Finally, almost half of the participants worked within public non-profit agencies (48.8%, n=79), more than three quarters worked within non-religiously affiliated agencies (80.9%, n=131), and an almost even number of participants were

teaching social work full- or part-time (51.5%, n=84) as were not (48.5%, n=79).

Conflict and Priority Items Table 3 includes frequencies of overall responses to the conflict items and the priority item. Overall, few participants reported frequent value conflicts on any of the four categories of conflict identified in the survey. Only 11.8% (n=19) of participants reported experiencing

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Value Conflicts in Social Work: Categories and Correlates

conflicts between professional and personal values often or very often with the remainder reporting experiencing conflicts occasionally (42.2%, n=68) and rarely or never (46%, n=74). Few participants reported conflicts between professional values and political views very often or often (7.5%, n=12) with the majority reporting rarely or never (68.9%, n=111) and the remainder reporting occasionally experience conflict in this area (23.6%, n=38). The same number of participants (7.5%, n=12)

reported often or very often experiencing conflict between religious beliefs and political views, 71.7% (n=114) reporting rarely or never, and 20.8% (n=33) reporting occasionally. Even fewer participants reported often or very often experiencing conflicts between professional values and religious beliefs (3.8%, n=6), with 23.8% (n=38) reporting occasional conflicts in this area, and the remaining participants divided between rarely (38.8%, n=62) and never (33.8%, n=54)

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Value Conflicts in Social Work: Categories and Correlates

experiencing such conflicts. In sum, the area with the fewest reported experiences of conflict was between professional values and religious beliefs. The area with most reported experiences of conflict was between professional and personal values.

The majority of participants indicated professional values (86.3%, n=138) as their primary source of direction for decisions when faced with conflict. Personal values (6.9%, n=11) and Other (5.6%, n=9) followed, with only two participants (1.3%) indicating religious beliefs and none indicating political views as a primary sources for decision making direction. All nine participants who chose "Other" completed a qualitative response. These responses were "a combination of personal/professional/religious values," "agency policy/practice," "combo of personal and professional," "dynamics of interpersonal relationships," "keeping neutral to assist client in THEIR identification," "NASW Code of Ethics," "never has been a conflict," "supervision," and "the values of my client."

Inferential Analysis Relationships were examined between each of the following variables: conflict items, religiosity, age, and years of social work experience, political ideology, participation, and importance of religion in daily life. The results indicate interesting distinctions between correlates of each of the different conflict categories. Both of the religiosity items and importance of religion in daily life were positively correlated with the experiences of conflict between professional values and religious beliefs (faith/ belief used to guide decisions, r=.213, p=.018; attendance at religious services, r=.364, p=.000; and importance of religion in daily life r=.407, p=.000) and between religious beliefs and political views (faith/belief used to guide decisions, r=.237, p=.008; attendance at religious services, r=.210, p=.019; and importance of religion in daily life r=.369, p=.000), but not with conflicts between either professional and personal values or professional values and political views (see Table 4). The more frequently participants attend religious services, use faith/beliefs to guide

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